Lorenzo Fertitta, chairman and CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, talks with the media on Wednesday, March 6, 2013, at the Capitol in Albany, N.Y. (Cindy Schultz / Times Union)

Lorenzo Fertitta, chairman and CEO of the Ultimate Fighting...

Ronda Rousey, women's world champion of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, right, talks with Steve Greenberg of the UFC on Wednesday, March 6, 2013, at the Capitol in Albany, N.Y. (Cindy Schultz / Times Union)

Ronda Rousey, women's world champion of the Ultimate Fighting...

Lorenzo Fertitta, chairman and CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, right, talks with the media on Wednesday, March 6, 2013, at the Capitol in Albany, N.Y. (Cindy Schultz / Times Union)

Lorenzo Fertitta, chairman and CEO of the Ultimate Fighting...

Lorenzo Fertitta, chairman and CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, talks with the media on Wednesday, March 6, 2013, at the Capitol in Albany, N.Y. (Cindy Schultz / Times Union)

Lorenzo Fertitta, chairman and CEO of the Ultimate Fighting...

Fighters work with instructors during a training session Friday Aug. 10, 2012, at Atlas Jiu Jitsu in Colonie, N.Y., where Assembly candidate Tim Nichols announced that he would allow Mixed Martial Arts in the state. Nichols is the former chief of staff for Bob Reilly who was noted for his oppositions to allowing MMA events in New York. (Will Waldron / Times Union)

Fighters work with instructors during a training session Friday...

Fighters work with instructors during a training session Friday Aug. 10, 2012, at Atlas Jiu Jitsu in Colonie, N.Y., where Assembly candidate Tim Nichols announced that he would allow Mixed Martial Arts in the state. Nichols is the former chief of staff for Bob Reilly who was noted for his oppositions to allowing MMA events in New York. (Will Waldron / Times Union)

Fighters work with instructors during a training session Friday...

Fighters work with instructors during a training session Friday Aug. 10, 2012, at Atlas Jiu Jitsu in Colonie, N.Y., where Assembly candidate Tim Nichols announced that he would allow Mixed Martial Arts in the state. Nichols is the former chief of staff for Bob Reilly who was noted for his oppositions to allowing MMA events in New York. (Will Waldron / Times Union)

Fighters work with instructors during a training session Friday...

Fighters work with instructors during a training session Friday Aug. 10, 2012, at Atlas Jiu Jitsu in Colonie, N.Y., where Assembly candidate Tim Nichols announced that he would allow Mixed Martial Arts in the state. Nichols is the former chief of staff for Bob Reilly who was noted for his oppositions to allowing MMA events in New York. (Will Waldron / Times Union)

In eight years as Albany County district attorney, David Soares has traded blows with steroids dealers, fraudsters and an ample supply of political detractors.

Now he feels compelled to strike one for a favorite sport — mixed martial arts.

Professional bouts of the athletic combat remain illegal in New York and have come under fire for their perceived brutality from other prosecutors, including fellow Democrat Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice

The Republican-led state Senate voted last month to legalize and regulate the fights, and a Siena Research Institute poll released Friday suggests public support for that is growing. A bill that would do the same is again pending in the Assembly, which in past years refused to take the issue up — with former Colonie Assemblyman Bob Reilly leading the moral resistance.

But unlike Reilly and Rice, who argued in a recent Times Union op-ed that the sometimes bloody bouts teach grim lessons to children about the heroism of brutality, Soares contends MMA can be a valuable tool to steer kids off streets that pose more dire threats to their safety — much like the city's oft-touted Quail Street boxing gym.

"Sports has always been a very important part of diversion," Soares told Insider this week. "These are people who are involved in a sport that requires a lot of discipline, a lot of focus. Look how many street kids were saved from lives of crime because they were drawn into boxing in the 1970s. Marvin Hagler was not going to be an accountant."

While not a fighter himself, Soares said he's followed MMA since its earliest years as the Ultimate Fighting Championship in the 1990s, tuning in with friends in his parents' Rhode Island basement.

Since then, he said, the sport has evolved into respectability from its loose, no-holds-barred roots. "The entire sport has changed," he said. "There are a lot of strikes that you cannot do in the octagon."

Ignoring that, he said, "fails to appreciate the just thousands of children that are involved in martial arts or boxing" — including, he noted, UFC light heavyweight champion Jon "Bones" Jones, who is originally from Rochester.

Still, the prosecutor said he gets that MMA isn't for everyone — the same way his father, a devoted boxing fan, never got football.

"All he would see is the snap of the ball and a pile of bodies," he said, adding of MMA's opponents: "When they're watching these two guys in the octagon, they're not seeing the years of discipline, timing, movement. ... All they're seeing is two young guys pummeling each other. But there are many of us who do see the beauty in these arts."

While McLaughlin remains the only announced candidate for the post that is next in line to be mayor, John Marsolais told Insider Friday that he is seriously considering a run for the council president's chair that McLaughlin has held since 2010.

Marsolais, who retired two years ago as city clerk and is the former 13th Ward Democratic leader, has never before sought elected office but is no stranger to the council chamber. The clerk is the only department head appointed by the council, and from 2003 to 2011 he sat beside McLaughlin and her two predecessors — Shawn Morris and Helen Desfosses — on the dais.

"I'm very seriously considering it," said Marsolais, who now lives in the 8th Ward, citing his more than three decades of experience in city government, including as deputy treasurer, deputy general services commissioner and top aide to former Mayor Thomas M. Whalen III "I think I'm a steady hand, and I think I can bring different people together for discussion."

Marsolais stressed he has no personal quarrel with McLaughlin but noted that, while not his primary motivation, some Democrats are still sore with McLaughlin for not abandoning her campaign against then-Cohoes Mayor John T. McDonald IIIafter losing last year's 108th Assembly District primary.

"She kind of upset a few people as a party officer not supporting the Democratic candidate," Marsolais said. McLaughlin is secretary to the Albany County Democratic Committee.

McLaughlin fiercely defended her right to do so, noting she had earned the right to be on the ballot on the Working Families Party line.

Marsolais also noted that McLaughlin herself said last week that competition is a good thing when she backed newcomer Vivian Kornegay for Common Council in the 2nd Ward — a seat McLaughlin held for 12 years — over incumbent Democrat Lester Freeman

"I had an opponent every time I ran. All three times," McLaughlin said. "It keeps you accountable."

Reach the Insider via email at jcarleo-evangelist@timesunion.com, 454-5445 or on Twitter @JCEvangelist_TU